Orbital Ring
Orbital Maglev Transit Rings, more commonly called Orbital Rings, were used by the United Sol Coalition to transport goods and people across the Deinosect-consumed Earth cheaply and efficiently. The rings run extremely fast electromagnetic train lines. While travel in these could take as much as a day and spaceship travel only two or three hours, it was the preferred form of travel for non-essential items, as it was cheaper and plentiful. The points where the two ends of the circles met, two on each ring, were called terminals, named after the city that they were in geosynchronous orbit above (Such as the Barrow Terminal). They existed as hubs of commerce and trading, and some expanded to be as large as some orbital cities. Travel to and from the service was achieved by the numerous space tethers, exactly the same except for the fact that the tethers of orbital rings were each located on the other side of the planet, the antipodal locations of their origin points. There were only three rings built by 2500 due to two factors: location and cost. All three of the orbital rings were constructed in the mid-24th century, long after the Dust Wars and not long after the end of the Border Wars. As such, funds were not low, and the USC built these projects to stimulate growth. Not only were there the two main terminals on either end of the ring, there was a number of other space tethers that were built, connecting to the rings in multiple places. This long-term job gave millions work and proved an asset to the USC. However, there were limited antipodal locations that could be used. The Oceania Ring, for example, had to start in New Zealand, one of the only significant non-frozen landmasses the USC still had, and end in the waters above France. While the orbital rings criss-crossed the globe, they were limited in number, and the USC had no intention of building more. Many had opposed the massive building project at its onset, complaints about costs and of ruining the atmosphere of Earth. While the latter was unfounded, the rings did prove to have problems with space debris, and construction was delayed several times when the first ring, the Mountain Ring, was found to be too low to escape the debris. Each ring rested at a different height above Earth, so that they could not hit one another. There were, however, terminals where they near-intersected, with orbital tethers connecting them and ferrying people in between, creating a large, three-layered orbital train network between space and Terra. The USC would tax anyone travelling through, and many did, as the rings also connected to orbital cities using off-branches, and cheap, long-distance orbital travel was extremely popular. No other planet used the orbital rings. They were extremely pricey and only viable if surface-travel could not be done, something practically unique to Earth. Not only that, but Earth was the only location in USC territory to require the constant sending of materials up and down, and the one of the only ones to have nearly its entire population living in orbit. Mercury and Venus, both small, had limited surface habitations and mining colonies, but these were supplied by space tethers which connected to cities, usually trading resources for food and water. While Earth was by far the most prominent user of orbital rings, several other planets, namely a few in the Sargas Sector, had them. List of Rings * Earth (United Sol Coalition) ** The Arctic-Antarctic Ring *** Jamestown, Queen Maud Land (Antarctica) - Barrow, Alaska (North America) ** The Mountain Ring *** USC Base 9124, Chilean Andes (South America) - Altai, Mongolia (Asia) ** Oceania Ring *** Christchurch, New Zealand (Australian Continent) - USC Naval Base 374, Off the Coast of Northern France (Europe) * New Paris (Auchshtagen Empire) ** Equatorial Ring *** Auchshtag Terminus, Auch Plateu - Delerio Terminus, Delerior Mountains Trivia * Orbital rings are actually a proposed technology. See here. Category:Technology Category:Space Platform Category:Stellar Object Category:Human